just keep your head above
by nicalyse
Summary: "Let us toast to animal pleasures." Finnick and Johanna in the Capitol. One-shot.


**A/N:** This is my first real foray into _Hunger Games_ fic, written for a prompt at the ficathon on LJ. I'd love to know what you think!

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><p>Johanna is sitting at a table in the hotel bar with Antony Smythwick, sipping a strong drink that is embellished with tiny, electric blue spheres made out of some sort of gel that floats through the liquor. She ignores the way they feel on her tongue, swallowing them down with the liquor that is the only thing that makes nights like these tolerable.<p>

Their table is in situated in the front window of the bar, so that everyone passing on the street sees that Smythwick is being accompanied by Johanna Mason, the Victor with the sharp tongue and deceptive bent that the Capitol has come to love.

This is how most of these _appointments_ are carried out: In public, under the bright lights and watchful gaze of the Capitol. What's the point of spending all that money on a Victor if you aren't going to show her off?

If it was just this, Johanna might not resent it so much, might not _hate_ it so much. If it was just about status and the show, she wouldn't make herself sick in the weeks leading up to the Victor's Tour, to the Games themselves, knowing that she would be expected to be in the Capitol. If it was just drinks in bars and being guided across dance floors at parties and dinners that are meant to look like romantic rendezvous, maybe she would be able to appreciate that she won, that she _lived_.

Had she knows that this is what she would have to live for, would she have fought so hard in the arena?

The noise level in the bar rises considerably, but before Johanna can turn to see the source of the commotion, it walks right up to their table.

"Antony!" the woman exclaims, holding out her arms as Johanna's companion stands. The woman's eyes are embellished with intricate lace-like designs drawn in makeup just a few shades lighter than her skin, and she has pale, pale green hair that falls in a sleek sheet to her waist. The overall effect is not unlike painting a wooden fence with whitewash. More extraordinary, however, is her stature. She is short, tiny even, and made to look even shorter and paler by her companion.

Finnick Odair, tall and tan and solid, stands beside her, his eyes trained on Johanna's face.

"Cleo," Antony says, leaning down to kiss the air next to her cheek. "Have you met Johanna Mason?"

"I haven't." Cleo turns her entire body to face Johanna, still seated in her chair, and smiles brilliantly. The matte white of her lipstick is nearly the same color as her teeth. "Your Games were extraordinary," she says, instantly making Johanna dislike her. "I had a dress made to match the red silk you wore on your Victory Tour. In District 2."

"My stylist," is all Johanna has to say, adding a tiny shrug of her shoulders. She tips her head back to look up at Finnick, still standing there with a little smirk on his lips. "Finnick."

"Johanna." His tone is polite but familiar, betraying only that they've met. Not as familiar as it could be.

Should be.

"Would you like to join us?" Antony offers. "We could have more chairs pulled up."

"No, no. No time for that, we have a dinner reservation at Cirque," Cleo says, dropping the name of one of the most expensive restaurants in the city. "But we couldn't leave without saying hello once we saw you here."

_I had to show off my Victor to you and the rest of the bar,_ Johanna decodes silently. She looks into her drink instead of up at Finnick, knowing that the expression on his face would just make her laugh.

"Of course," Antony says.

"It was good to see you," Cleo says, looping her arm through Finnick's. "And so lovely to meet you, Johanna."

Johanna just smiles, not worrying if the expression doesn't meet her eyes. This isn't someone she needs to impress.

"See you around, Johanna," Finnick says, winking when she looks up at him.

There's a part of her that wishes that wasn't true.

Either Antony is one of the few Capitol citizens who knows what being a gentleman is or he's just not wealthy enough to afford more, but after Johanna finishes her fourth drink and her head is swimming deliciously, he escorts her upstairs to her room - paid for by the Capitol as one of the "perks" of being a Victor - gives her a chaste kiss good night, and leaves her alone without trying for anything more.

She tries to be grateful for small favors, but all she can manage is not loathing Antony Smythwick.

Johanna pours herself a glass of water and looks out over the city, standing in her bare feet in front of the window that dominates the wall of her room. Objectively, it's a pretty place, full of shape and color and light. She hates it and its people and everything that it all stands for. The myth it perpetuates.

What it's done to her.

She jumps, startled, at the knock on the door.

Finnick is standing on the other side, leaning casually against the door jamb, a bottle dangling from between his long, lethal fingers. "I thought we could celebrate our first night back in the Capitol," he tells her, his voice lazy with whatever he's already drunk or taken.

Johanna doesn't mind, ushering him in and retrieving two glasses.

"Finished with Cleo already?"

He smirks, his eyes on the pale orange liquor he's pouring into glasses. "Cleo fancies herself an unattainable prize," he says, voice affected with a touch of Capitol accent. "She wants romance," he goes on, using what Johanna thinks of as his 'real' voice. "The whole idea that she's being wooed, but none of the payoff."

"So she doesn't want you to fuck her," Johanna says, shrugging one shoulder carelessly when he presses a glass into her hand with a bland look. "Call a spade a spade, Odair."

The liquor is sweet, the kind of sweetness designed to obscure the strength of the alcohol. The fruity flavor isn't bad, but Johanna prefers drinks that taste exactly as strong as they are, likes the way they burn the back of her throat and all the way down into her stomach, warming from the inside out.

"Pretty dress," Finnick comments casually, his eyes lingering somewhere around her hips.

Her lips curve slightly. "I know." The deep blue fabric is designed to mimic water, rippling with even the slightest movement of her breath, completely open down to the small of her back and held up with slender straps over her shoulders. Though everything that counts is covered, the dress leaves little to the imagination. If Finnick likes it, it's doing exactly what it's intended to do.

He grazes the backs of his fingers up the side of her arm, his eyes following their trail. His hand curves around her shoulder, his thumb sliding along her collarbone until he's cradling her neck against his palm, the tips of his fingers playing at her hairline. "Johanna," he murmurs quietly, his pretty green eyes focused on her lips.

She doesn't have the patience for this game, especially with someone who plays this side of it so often, so much better than she does.

"Fuck it." The sound of the bottom of her glass hitting the surface of the silver bar cart rings through the room, but she ignores it, digging her hands into his shoulders and pushing up onto her toes to kiss him.

Her dress is falling with a quick motion of his fingers, the straps catching at the crooks of her elbows for just a moment before she shifts to let it fall away. Finnick's hands, large and sure and hot against her skin, span her back, pulling her naked body against his. He's so solid - _familiar_ - licking into her mouth and dropping his arms to his sides when she scrambles to unbutton his shirt, wanting to feel more of _him_. The motions are quick, practiced even.

This is hardly the first time they've done this.

They met for the first time on her Victory Tour. He acted as her escort at the dinner in her honor in District 4, outwardly appearing to be everything that she'd seen of Finnick Odair on television over the years. It was the way that he acted when no one else was watching that made her like him. The jokes whispered at the expense of the other guests, how he pointed out the people to avoid and rescued her when she wasn't able to get away on her own.

They were alone for just a few moments at the end of the night, while Johanna waited for her chaperone to come collect her for the train ride to 3. He'd looked at her for just a moment, head tilted, then said, "I like you," as simply and as easily as he might have said _I like to swim_. Then he leaned down, kissed her lips gently, and gave her a smile so sad she spent the rest of the night trying to figure out what it meant.

Now, in a hotel room high above the streets of the Capitol, he kisses a trail from the hollow of her throat, down the valley of her breasts, and across her stomach, raising gooseflesh on her skin that she'll blame on the temperature of the room instead of the way that his tongue moves against her, hot and wet when he laps at her clit.

Johanna arches, pressing her hips toward his face, his mouth, his tongue that is doing things to her that steal the breath from her lungs. She can feel him smirk against her when she tunnels her fingers in his hair, grasping at the soft strands, her fingers curling into fists when she comes, hips jerking.

She's still coming down when he grips her hips hard, her eyes flying open when he lifts her body over his, settling her weight over his hips. He's hard between her thighs, his lips are parted, shiny with _her_. She leans down to kiss him, sliding her tongue against his to taste herself, swallowing his groan when she rolls her hips slowly. "Jo." She bites at his lip, slipping her hand between them to grasp his cock - so hard, so ready for her - and guide him into her. "Fuck," he growls.

Pushing herself upright, Johanna scores her nails down his chest - lightly, so as not to leave marks, so as not to raise questions - lifting her body up before sinking down again. It pulls a sound from deep in her chest, involuntary and unguarded and _real_ the way that she rarely allows herself to be. Finnick doesn't try to guide her hips, letting her set the pace and the rhythm - fast, rough, racing toward the release that she so needs - his hands covering her breasts, kneading hard not because he likes the way that it feels, but because he knows that she does. His eyes are dark and half-closed, but focused on hers.

It's never mattered how much she tries not to, she gets a little bit trapped in Finnick's eyes.

He shifts beneath her, just slightly, but just right, so that he's hitting that perfect spot inside her each time she rolls her hips, tiny sounds - not whimpers, never whimpers - tripping off her tongue each time. "Jo." She moans, lets her head drop back so she can't see the look on his face. His hands slide down to her hips, gripping hard without restricting her movement. "Stop fighting it."

She shakes her head, looks down at him, feels the desperation on her face. "I'm not. I need-"

He strokes his thumb against her clit before she can say it, once, twice, a third time before she's coming undone, crying out as her body goes rigid, warmth radiating from the center of her, tingling all the way to the tips of her fingers, the tips of her toes.

She clutches at his back when he rolls her beneath him again, part of her brain mapping out the lines of his back, the play of the muscles beneath his skin, the hard line of his spine. She hooks her leg around his hip, letting him use her but not feeling used, her breath coming in pants against his neck. He comes with a grunt, his lips against her collarbone as he spends himself inside her, hips still moving gently as he works through his release.

He pushes up onto his hands, smirking down at her lazily for a moment before pressing a quick kiss to her forehead.

Johanna stretches when he moves off of her, arching her back, feeling her spine crack as the joints release the pressure she hadn't even realized was building there. She feels warm and loose, not quite relaxed, but far less tense than she was before.

The dryness in her throat forces her up off the too-soft bed. She tops off the glass she was drinking from, carries it with her to the bed, and doesn't bother to glare at Finnick when he plucks it from her hand, helping himself to a drink.

There are two things that have made being in the Capitol bearable from day one: Liquor and Finnick.

In his own way, Finnick showed her how to survive this world that she is a part of now, the world that makes it all look and seem so easy but is fraught with its own quiet horrors. It's a different sort of brutality, but no less brutal than working toward nothing and starving to death in the process. If not for him, she might have fallen apart years ago, one way or another, just like so many of the Victors before her.

She shakes her head when Finnick offers her another drink, sitting up on her knees so she can see herself in the mirror. She unclasps the necklace she'd forgotten she was wearing, a shining silver thing meant to mimic the curve of a blade. She catches him looking at her face - or the reflection of her face - in the mirror. "What?"

"Nothing." He tilts his head when she turns her body to his. "Nothing," he repeats, smirking when she glares.

She considers him for a moment. "Again," she finally says, letting herself laugh when she sees the filthy look in his eyes.


End file.
